


a poison that never stung

by Kangoo



Series: Front toward enemy [20]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Forsaken keeps giving me feels huh, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Ikora-centric, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-10 01:43:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20127301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: razel comes back





	a poison that never stung

**Author's Note:**

> for a little bit of context: after uldren comes back as a guardian, razel tries to kill him, abd ikora forbids him to do it, so he just. fucks off from the City, because it's either that or Uldren dies.
> 
> title from hozier's sedate

Ikora lost too many of her friends. Osiris to Zavala to his duties, barely more than a friendly acquaintance now; Eris to her research, wherever that has led her; Cayde to his own recklessness, never to be seen again.

But for all her losses, she never expected Razel to leave as well.

She always expected him to be there, naive as that may sound. He had that thing about him, that feeling of— immovability. A permanent fixture in her life, who sometimes stayed away for months at a time but who always, _always_ came back. She had come to rely on that, on him, despite his youth.

And in the end — maybe he _didn’t_ leave. Maybe she was the one who sent him away.

Killing a Guardian, innocent and barely resurrected, for the crimes of his past life, is wrong in every way. But how she wishes she had let him do it, just this once, to have Uldren out of her life forever and her last friend at her side.

Instead Uldren still haunts her, and Razel hasn’t been back since then.

Until now.

She learns of his return before his ship is even in transmat range of the Tower. It takes all of her will not to run to the hangar to greet him. It’s been so long, years, she thinks, since she’s seen him last. Months since they last talked, stilted and awkward, over the comms. But she’s not sure if the welcome party would be appreciated. Does he still resent her for protecting Uldren? Even knowing it was the right thing to do she can’t help but regret it, if only for the way it drove him away.

She stays put. He’ll come to her if he wants to see her.

And he does. Far sooner than she would have expected. With far more enthusiasm, too. He strides towards her with a wide smile and a bounce in his step, waving at her in case she hasn’t noticed him yet. She hasn’t seen him so happy in… _years_. Briefly she worries about Uldren’s fate, but Razel wouldn’t go against a direct order of the Vanguard. She knows this much.

“Ikora!”

Blinking out of her stupor, she returns his wave with some hesitance and dredges up a smile from her somber thoughts.

“Razel. You look well.”

“Thanks! _You_ look tired. No one’s been around to get you to take break?”

Her hand stills in the air. She can feel her expression freeze. There’s something wrong — in the way he words it like a genuine question, in the brightness of his smile and the vacant look in his eyes. She feels it in her stomach, the tug of a fishhook.

Razel knows perfectly well that Cayde and him were the last two to ever drag her out of her work whether she liked it or not. He tried to keep it up, at first, before the memory of her decision drove a gap between them. He called, sometimes, to tell her to go to sleep or do something fun instead of reading reports all day. Asked her questions about her research even if he didn’t understand a word of her ensuing explanations.

Something’s not right.

“What are you doing here, Raze?” She asks, her voice cautious.

He tilts his head, confused rather than annoyed by the implication that he shouldn’t be there. “Cubix’s is out so I thought I’d make a social call while getting him back on again. Why? Did I forget something important?”

“No, but.” She sighs. “Nothing. It’s good to see you.”

His smile gets softer, so sincere it hurts. “It’s good to see you too. We should do something together while I’m here, the three of us. I can try to convince Zavala to come with if you want.”

She has the nagging feeling he doesn’t mean Cubix when he says _the three of us_.

“Hey, you alright? You look… weird.”

“Yes, yes, I’m- I just have a lot on my plate right now.” It’s the understatement of the century, but she’s too uneasy to get into it.

“Lots of work? I get it. I’ll leave you alone- _for now_,” he adds, grinning in that way of his that promises _shenanigans_ and that she’s missed so dearly. It warms her heart to see it. “Have you seen Cayde today? I dropped by the hangar but he wasn’t there.”

Her heart breaks, the pain so sharp, so visceral she swears it’s going to stop beating right there and then. She swallows hard. Grief swells in her throat like a tangible thing. She stumbles a few steps, bridging the gap between them. Her arms rise slowly, as if through water or molasses, as if in a dream, stop halfway to him. She feels her face twist and is helpless to stop it, or the tears that overflow from here eyes and run down her cheeks. A hiccup wrenches its way out or her chest. Soon her breathes comes out laboriously, in quiet, wretched sobs, grief engulfing her as she stands there, so close yet so distant from her best and last friend, who forgot every tragic thing that happened to him.

Razel wraps his arms around her with a panicked sound, crushing her against the hard lines of his body armor. He’s talking, rambling really, asking what’s wrong — what happened — _what’s going on_ even as he rubs her back, awkwardly trying to comfort her.

She can’t answer his questions. All she can do is cling to the back of his robes and hide her face in his shoulder, painfully relieved to have him warm and present in her arms, her sorrow a deep abyss as she thinks that, this time, she will be the one to kill Cayde for him.


End file.
